


we awake to nightmares, and sing them off.

by duelbraids



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Rare Pairings, Referenced War, Referenced past abuse, im paddling this canoe down the river of hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-15 03:22:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20859404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duelbraids/pseuds/duelbraids
Summary: twists of fate lead to married bliss - even if their nightmares interrupt it.





	we awake to nightmares, and sing them off.

**Author's Note:**

> is it still rare pair week? i dont know, but the retainer swap art on twitter sent me paddling this canoe.

Tonight, Edelgard awoke screaming. Dedue had, in the years of having married her, gotten used to her night terrors. Of course, she’s told him why. That her body had been torn into, and then sewn back, in order to give her a second crest. The thought could make his blood boil, but Dedue had always been a reticent man, and he certainly didn’t want to let his dear wife know. She was thrashing, contained by the covers like they are the same chains that held her so long ago. 

Trying to wake her, Dedue grips her shoulders, and shakes her side from side. Gently, not for fear that she would break, but for fear that she might rouse too quickly, and that it would disorient her further. He disentangles her from the sheets, which seems to help, as she can now stretch her arms to their fullest, which she uses to wrap herself into Dedue.  This was a near-nightly ritual, after all. He had his own nightmares, and he knew, Edelgard had done much the same for him. When the images haunted him - of children dying in Duscur, of owing his life to a man they had slain–

But tonight, it is only she who awoke with fear. “You’re alright,” He mutters into her hair, one hand comes to hold her head, to his chest - she’d always requested it, that she hear his heartbeat. Another thing he knows why - that her sister once let her do it, and that now it brings her some peace. Perhaps, even, nostalgia. 

Some nights, this is all it takes. A reminder, that she is no longer under threat of blades to her skin, and she will come back to the real world. She will kiss him and thank him and they will return to wedded bliss. But tonight, Edelgard shakes and she cries, “They’ll come back,” Her voice contains all the strength of an eight year old, whispering in fear. “They’ll come back and c-come for me - or for  _ you,  _ o-or,” a heavy gasp, “Dedue,  _ our child-  _ how could we bring them into such danger-” 

“Edelgard.” His voice is blunt, but enough to quiet her ramblings, long enough for him to remind her, “We  _ killed  _ Those Who Slither, don’t you remember?” 

“But how do we know it was all of them-” 

This time, he silences her with a kiss to her forehead, too good of a man to silence her the way one does in a romance novel, “If any remain, they are sure to be powerless to do much anymore. After all, they know even an attempt to rear their heads would end with your axe.” Another reminder, for he knows she still forgets. “You’re quite the mother bear.” 

Edelgard can’t help but laugh, but a sudden hush crossed her, and new words, new insecurities, follow “I… I had to do it.” She tells him, “So they couldn’t - they couldn’t do that to another family. For everyone to be free of the church, of… I had to.” She repeats her mantra.  _ I had to,  _ extends to  _ we had to.  _

“It is the past, Edelgard.” Dedue wonders, would the people whisper differently of her, if they knew how she agonized, (and perhaps, if they knew, would they stop looking at him with pity for having married her.) “We cannot change the blood we have spilled. But, we  _ can  _ use our lives to better the world.” 

He watched her nod her head,  _ brown  _ hair falling out of the bun she put it in nightly. Dedue was still so unused to this new hue, but he supposed it is her natural color. Only with Hanneman’s surgery was she freed of the Crest’s burden, barely a year ago. He supposed a year was not enough time to take in such a change. At least, when he’d known her by that color for so long. 

The year interim had also brought their first child, Edelgard assured her body could handle the stress of it (before, neither knew, and the Crest bore on her, so they played it safe.) Dedue, certain that Edelgard would be fine without his comfort for a few moments, stood, crossing the length of their bedroom to the cradle. Holding the infant in his arms, Dedue cannot help but remark on how small they are, how much they look like a perfect combination of the two. They sleep, peaceful.

“Wh-where are you going?” Edelgard asks, trying to raise and follow him, but quickly sees her own answer, and quiets with an “Oh.” 

“I am surprised they didn’t wake with your screaming.” Dedue admits, though he knows she cannot help it. He too would scream, were he haunted so. No, when he has such terrors, he awakes silently, like the air is holding a cloth over his mouth. For he knew that had he screamed, those soldiers would have found him, and then it would have been he, too, who knew naught but the cold of death. But he didn’t, and Dedue supposes their lives are better for it; the bed shifted under his weight, when he sat beside her. 

His wife blushes, and Dedue is quick to change it from embarrassment to the flush that comes with love, kissing her cheek. The child, Liesel, coos and gurgles in his arms, and Dedue leans down to kiss them too. Edelgard giggled, of course she did. She loved their family, as much as he did, and they loved each other - it was, perhaps, a little too story book. Perhaps that’s the kind of ending that they needed. 

“You,” she begins her comment, “Are the best man in the world.” 

And Dedue, for all his faults, believes those words from his wife’s lips, before claiming them for his own. 


End file.
